Is there a catch in the UK's fishing deal with Europe?

Having been a fundamental factor in Britain’s negotiations to join the European Union in the 1960s, and in the debates that surrounded the Brexit referendum in 2016, fisheries have once again become central to the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe.

- SEAN O'GRADY

The Common Understanding” deal that has now been secured by Keir Starmer was held up by a dispute about fishing rights, and few, if any, of the many complex issues in UK-EU relations arouse such strong emotions.

Some wonder if this is rational...

What’s the new deal?

That the rules about fishing rights contained in the 2020 EUUK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) – Boris Johnson’s “oven ready” Brexit deal – should hold for a further 12 years. The TCA provided for a review in 2026, so Starmer’s deal effectively pre-empts that. The 2026 review was planned by Johnson as a compromise on the way, he hoped, to the UK regaining even more of the exclusive territorial fisheries it had previously ceded under EU membership and the old EU Common Fisheries Policy.

The provisions in the TCA were for 25 per cent of the overall existing EU quota in UK waters to be transferred to the UK by June 2026. After that point, annual negotiations were supposed to take place over various types of fish and national quotas (with the hope of the UK gaining more of its own waters back).

What’s wrong with that?

Well, it’s not 100 per cent British fish for British fisherfolk, and according to critics, British fishing communities have been betrayed once again.